The present invention relates in general to data processing systems and in particular to server computers. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to an improved method and system for managing data center power usage based on service commitments.
Conventional data centers house hundreds, or even thousands of servers and other information technology (IT) hardware. A typical data center hosts many enterprise applications on the hardware the data center houses. Each application has formal or informal performance targets in terms of the number of transactions the application can process and the maximum allowable time to process a transaction. These targets are referred to as service level objectives or agreements (SLOs/SLAs). Each application is typically provisioned (i.e., assigned) with sufficient hardware to meet its SLO for the highest anticipated demand or transaction volume.
During periods of low processing demand from enterprise applications, idle data center servers, individual processors, and/or cores within single servers often continue to consume power. Data centers that are provisioned with a large number of hardware resources in order to meet maximum required demand levels thus consume high levels of power. However, conventional data center load management features are not fast enough to respond to changes in application workload in real time.